Word: vickrey
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...bought a used car knows that the seller typically has far more information than the buyer. That's why states have lemon laws. Such gaps in information lie at the heart of the work for which James Mirrlees of Britain's Cambridge University, and formerly Oxford, and William Vickrey of Columbia University shared this year's Nobel for Economics. By studying the "asymmetric information" that characterizes many markets, the two men, who have never met, demolished the classic economic assumption that all parties to a deal have equal knowledge...
...Vickrey, 82, designed a novel auction method in which bids are sealed and the winner pays what the second-highest bidder offered; a version of this is used by the U.S. Treasury to sell notes. Vickrey also urged railways and utilities to prevent congestion by charging peak rates at the busiest times of day, a practice that has now become routine...
...Canadian-born Vickrey, who died while driving to a conference three days after winning the prize, was known for his voracious curiosity and sometimes eccentric behavior. He often roller-skated from Manhattan's 125th Street train station to his classes on the Columbia campus and enjoyed sitting in on colleagues' lectures and asking pointed questions. He was keenly aware of the passage of time. "I have left undone many things that I ought to have done," he once wrote, "and can only hope that there is enough health left in me to make good some of the deficiency...
...YORK: After winning the Nobel prize in economics, laureate William Vickrey said he was ready to use the Nobel for a "good bully pulpit," and had a few more books to write. Instead, the 82-year old economist died Thursday night. He was found by a passing motorist unconscious at the wheel of his car about 30 miles north of New York City by a passing motorist, and pronounced DOA at a hospital early today. His 60 year career focused on "asymmetric information," when the parties in a transaction have access to different information. Interested in practical applications, like...
STOCKHOLM: The third of six Nobel prizes was presented Tuesday to Briton James Mirrlees and American William Vickrey for their work in economic theory. The two men did ground-breaking writing on"asymetric information," a condition which occurs when buyer and seller have differing information about a transaction. The condition has broad implications in analyzing systems from insurance and credit markets to taxation schemes. Mirrlees used the theory to study how high to set income taxes without discouraging workers and investors or encouraging tax evasion. Karl Gustaf Loefgren, a member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences, called...